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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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1585 
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IMPOETANT 




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Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1881. by the Faught-Deering 
Cotton Gin Driver Manufacturing Company, Louisville, Ky. 



LOUISVILLE, KY.: 

JOHN P. MORTON & CO., 1.5i; AND loS MAIN STREET. 

1881. 






INDEX. 



Of the proper working of horses in Gin Houses Page 1 



Of the wisdom of long or short levers 

More particularly about Gin Houses 

Of the Gin 

Proving the condition of the Gin 

Of the speed of the Gin 

Of the belt leading from the Gin to the power. 
Conclusion 



4 
5 

7 

9 

9 

11 

12 



? 



.^'7? 



Q? 



IMPORTANT GIN-HOUSE ECONOMIES. 



Of the Proper Working of Horses in Gin Houses. 




Diagram No. 1. 

The letter I in the above diagram stands for one of the levers of a 
horse power. The letter P stands for that post of the gin house in which 
this diagram was made which was found to be nearest to the master wheel 
of the horse power. The curved line c stands for the line of the draught 
hook by which the liorses were hitched to the lever. The letters h h rep- 
resent the two horses. The letter i represents the line of the center of 
draught, while f f show the heads of both horses as they were found in this 
house walking inside the line of the draught hook. 

Why were the horses in this case both walking inside the line of the 
draught hook ? Because there was not room for the outside horse between 
the draught hook and the post; because the draught hooks in this gin house 
were put into the levers at points which made it necessary to cut notches into 
each of the middle posts for the passage of the swingletrees. 



2 Important Gin-House Economies. 

We will now explain tlie harm of throwing the outside horses thus inside 
the line of the draught hook. 

The lever from which tliis diagram was made measured 14 feet from the 
center of the master wheel to the draught hook, and the gentleman who 
owned tlie machine thought that his horses had the advantage of 14 feet 
levers. He was mistaken. The full or actual lever in any horse power is 
the length of a line drawn at right angles to the line of draught, and ex- 
tending from that line to the center of the master wheel. Look now at dia- 
gram No. 1, and observe that the line d is at right angles with the line i 
which is the line of draught, and then recognize that the length of this line 
d is exactly the length or value of the lever through which the power of 
the horses passes without loss to the master wheel. When in the case now 
under consideration this line was laid upon the lever, its upper end touched 
the point represented by the star, and a moment's measurement demonstrated 
that the levers fondly believed to be 14, were in reality but 12 feet in length. 





Diagram No. 2. 



Important Qin- House Economies. 



In diagram No. 2 also it is 14 feet from the draught hook to the center of 
the master wheel. But in this gin houso the post P is some three feet farther 
from the center, and the head of the outer horse is therefore as far outside 
as the head of the inner horse is inside the line of the draught hook. Ob- 
serve now the length of the line d. You perceive it is nearly if not quite 
one-seventh longer than in the first diagram. Recognize that in both dia- 
grams it is 14 feet from the center of master wheel to draught hook, and yet 
in the lever under No. 2 the horses have nearly if not quite one-seventh 
more advantage over the weight thrown on them from the gin, than they 
have under their attachment at 14 feet from the center iu the first gin house 
considered. 




-«>. 



Diagram No. 3. 

Diagram No. 3. was made in the gin house under diagram No. 1. In 
this we have, as you can perceive, moved the draught hook inward until we 
have but 13 instead of 14 feet to the center. When it was first suggested 
to the gentleman to do this, he seriously objected on the ground that he 
woidd rather nick a little farther into his posts and move his hooks outward 
instead of inward ; but a few wise words convinced him that with the outside 
horses walking fairly outside the line of his draught hooks, he would have 
longer levers with these 13 feet from the center than, as he was at the time 
working, he had with them 14 feet from that center. 



4 Important Gin-House Economies. 

These diagrams are made on principles as absolute as the movements 
of the stars, and when by measurement you now make yourself sure 
that the line d is longer in the No. 3 than it is in the No. l,you may rest 
equally as sure that with draught hooks 13 feet from the center and the 
outside horse on each lever walking outside the line of the hooks, any 
given number of horses can do the same work with loss power, or do 
more work with the same power than tlicy can with the draught hooks 
14 feet from the center, and they walking inside that line as shown in 
diagram No. 1. Whatever may be the size of your gin house never 
therefore put a draught hook into a lever without leaving at the very 
least 30 inches between it and any post or other obstruction nearest to 
the master wheel. 

Of the Wisdom of Long: or Short Levers. 

We will now say a few we trust wise words on the diffei-ence be- 
tween long and short levers. 

Horses hitched to draught hooks 12 feet from the center and walk- 
ing 2h miles an hour will make three rounds a minute ; and in tins case 
the gin saws are impelled three rounds a minute multiplied by the dif- 
ference in diameter between the pinion and the master wheel, and this 
in turn multiplied by the difference between the pulley on the gin shaft 
and the puUej' on the shaft with the pinion driven by the master 
wheel. If the difference in each of these cases be 10, the pulley on the 
pinion shaft will turn 3 times a minute multi))lied by 10. which will be 
30, and the gin saws will turn 80 times a minute multiplied by 10, 
which will be 300. 

We will from this point proceed on the basis that to give the gin 
saws these 300 a minute requires a power of 600 pounds per second ap- 
plied to the master wheel. For this we hitch two horses to each of two 
levers on draught hooks at 12 feet from the center, and if the power ex- 
pended by these horses could be applied to the wheel as it is applied to 
the axle tree of a wagon, they would be called on but for 600 pounds 
per second — that is, would be called on but for 150 pounds ])er 
horse per second. But when the power of horses is expended in driv- 
ing a stationary master wheel, a considerable measure of this power is 
dissipated before it reaches the wheel, and the measure of this dissipa- 
tion may be in every case ascertained by the degree of the angle less 
than the right angle at which the jDower is transmitted to the axle tree; 
and on levers with draught hooks 12 feet from the center and the 
horses walking as in diagram No. 2, this angle will usually be found to 
be about 15 degrees within the right angle; and from this it can be 
demonstrated that an expenditure of 600 pounds per second reaches the 
master wheel but as about 485 joounds per second, and the result is that, 
as for the 300 revolutions of the gin saws the master wheel must have 
the full COO pounds, the horses must supplement the amount of the loss 
which is 115 pounds, and so instead of 600 must expend 715 pounds per 
second. 

We will next consider levers with draught hooks 15 feet from the 
center. On these the horses walking still 2i miles ])er hour will make 
but about 2 instead of, as on the 12 foot levers, 3 rounds a minute; and 
as with the same master wheel and pulley.?, this would reduce the 
motion of the saws to 225 a minute, we must, if we would preserve the 
300, provide ourselves with a larger master wheel and pulley, or per- 



Important Gin-House Economies. 



haps only a larger master wheel or pulley, sufficient to make a compen- 
sation. It is true that to do tliis may cost perhaps the value of a half 
or perhaps the value of a whole bale of cotton ; but this once invested 
does not have to be repeated, while tiie difference in the loss of power 
with the smaller master wheel and pullej' under the 12 foot levers is re- 
peated every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every week, 
evcrj' month, every year you use your running gear. But we will now 
see what this difference is. 

With the draught hooks 15 feet from the center, the point of draught 
between the collars of the mules may be perhaps 12 inches closer to the 
draught hooks than fairly possible with the hooks 12 feet from the cen- 
ter, and this added to the three feet greater distance from the center, 
reduces the angle of loss from 15 to a litile less than 12 degrees; and 
under this it can be demonstrated that the power dissipated is reduced 
to about 75 instead of, as with the 12 foot levers, 115 pound.s per second; 
so that now instead of calling on our horses for 715 we call on them 
but for 675 pounds per second — a saving for four horses, pulling each 
but the moderate average of 150 pounds per second, of twenty-four 
hundred pounds per minute, one hundred and forty-four thousand 
pounds per hour, one million and forty-four thousand pounds per day; 
and if instead of two levers and four horses, we have four levers and 
eight horses, we have a saving of two million and eighty-eight thousand 
pounds per day. 

You perceive now that it is on a wise and enlightened and therefore 
on an honest basis that we suggest a larger in preference to a smaller 
horse power, and that we always advise that all new gin houses be 
made so as to give at least 18 feet betvveen the point intended for the 
center of the master wheel and any fixed post or other obstruction 
nearest to the master wheel. 

More Particularly About Gin Houses. 

A house 36 feet square inside will enable you to use levers with 
draught hooks 15 feet from the center, and give you three feet outside 
the line of the hooks for each outside horse. But recent considerations 
lead us to advise the form as in diagram No. 4, 



0. 



h 



m. 



9- 



h 



b. 



Diagram No. 4. 



6 Important Gin-House Economies. 

in which m b represents the middle beam of the gin stand floor supported 
under the center by the internal pillar of the Fanght-Deering ; and in 
which g h represent a gin-stand supporting beam which is the same dis- 
tance from the center as the outside beam o h. The letters o o represent 
posts underneath for the double purpose of supporting this gin-stand 
beam, and for studs for a partition making a room 4 or more feet wide 
and 36 feet long into which the cotton seed may fall through an inclined 
shoot down from the gin ; and this beam supported by these posts 
will impart a steadiness and consequent perfection to the icorking of the 
gin not othertinse possible. In cases in which the cotton is blown into 
a lint room, the gin will of course stand with its delivery side out- 
ward, and it will of course deliver in the same direction if through a 
condensor into a press room. But whether the delivery side of the gin 
be set outward or inward, its saw cylinder should be placed alwa3'8 as 
much as possible over this beam, not onl}- for the largest possible stead- 
iness, but also that its belt leading to the horse power may not be inter- 
fered with by the beam. Another use of this greater extension of the 
house on one side of the master wheel than on the other will be spoken 
of when we come to speak more particularly of this belt. 

Our experience indicates that it is wiser not to go into details either 
as to modes of framing or as to any exact sizes of timbers. The model 
which accompanies each of our machines will give the plan of gin stand 
floor best suited for the support to be given it by our Faught-Deering. 
It will not however show this newly introduced gin-stand beam, which 
can be sufiiciently understood from the foregoing diagram and expla- 
ation. We may say, however, that in our opinion the posts of the house 
will be sufiiciently large eight inches square, and that the middle beam, 
pencil marked M £ in model, should not be less than 8 by 10 inches, 
while of course the floor joist parallel with it must be of the same 
depth, whether 10 or 12 inches. 

The parallel timbers marked A B in model need not, if used under 
fair sized floor joists, exceed G by 8 inches — putting the 6 inch way 
downward and the 8 inch way spreading over the joist. The master 
wheel and counter-shaft hangers to be bolted to these timbers, where 
you will see the holes through them in the model, have projections 
on their upper faces which fit in between the timbers; and for these 
projections (which are intended for keeping the hangers from twist- 
ing) these timbers A and B should be a little less than four inches 
apart. 

The parallel timbers marked C D in model are to be sufiiciently 
apart for the puUej' of the horse power and are to be bolted at their 
inner ends to the middle beam by the | inch bolts which accompany 
each machine for this purpose. We suggest that it would be perhaps 
wiser not to bolt up these two timbers until you have the pulley fin- 
ished on the countershaft, and then put them as close to the pullej' as 
convenient. 

For our machines Nos. 2 and 4 the under surface of these parallel or 
hanger timbers may vary as convenient from 7 feet 6 inches to 8 feet 
from the level of the mule track. The internal pillars of these num- 
bers, including the thickness of the upper plate of central hanger, 
and the thickness of the step or ink, are 6 feet 9J inches. The 7 feet 6 
inches to 8 feet will therefore give from 9 to 15 inches from surface 
of mule track to upper face of upper foundation block. 



Important Gin-House Economies. 7 

The internal pillar of the No. 1 is six inches shorter, and of the No. 
6 six inches Ioniser than the pillars of the Nos. 2 and 4. 

In a house with a second floor, as in a t;in house, it costs so little ad- 
ditional to make the wall posts 17 or 18 rather than, as in too many 
old gin houses, 10 or 12 feet in height that we are bold enough to seri- 
ously advise the former. We know that some of our patrons have built 
houses with a tloor above the gin stand floor, and we liave heard from 
these expressions of proud satisfaction. But the importance of good 
head room, clear out to the walls, for the hands working on the gin stand 
floor, and of good light, and particularly of good light on the gin stand, 
should command, as we trust it will command, your serious and en- 
lightened attention. 

Of the plan of foundations, or of timbers for, or mode of roofing, or 
of the mode or angles of thorough bracing, we think it is unnecessary 
to speak, and so content ourselves with leaving these and other useful 
details to the good sense of yourself and carpenter. We venture, how- 
ever, to suggest that you see carefully that the horse track be pre- 
served by drains or under drains against at any time changing into a 
serai-quagmire, and that you make its surface high enough to bar out 
all possibility of overflow. 

If you have ordered and received the model of our parallelogramic 
house, (as given in our general or advertising pamphlet), we ask you to 
consider the remarks made in the foregoing regarding our new gin-stand 
beam as wisely applicable to it also; and if building after this model 
you would, under those remarks, of course make j'our house 18x40 or 
42 instead of 18x36 feet as in our general pamphlet. But in this ease 
you would not put our central pillar under the center as it shows in the 
diagram in that pamphlet, but put so as to give 18 feet on one side and 
22 or 24 feet on the other side of that pillar. The 4 or 6 feet difference 
being for the very useful cotton seed recejitiou room and the gin-stand 
supporting beam and posts. 

Of The Gin. 

A cotton gin is a machine of quick and subtile operation and should 
have a more earnest watchfulness and a more intelligent supervision 
than it has thus far generally received. As men of many quiet obser- 
vations, we respectfully declare that did machinery in general receive 
no better attention than on an average it receives, or at least has thus 
far received in our gin houses, there never would have been and there 
never could be a successful manufacturer of any commodity through 
machinery in the world; but as men who have not simplj' an admira- 
tion of machinery, but a love for the grand ultiniiites which under God 
are in fair time to be attained through it, we have full faith that 
the diflidence or thoughtlessness which has caused or still causes this 
absence of right attention to the foundations for, the light upon and the 
right running of our gins will in the course of a very few generations 
disappear. 

One gentleman of celebrity as an expert under cotton machinery, 
says that our common saw gin is barbarous, and hopes, as we also hope, 
that the time is coming when the lint will be taken from the seed by 
something more gentle than rigid rapidly flj'ing claws of steel ; but wo 
are sure, and we think he also is sure that the time will never come 
when this benignant staple can be separated from the seed by other 



8 Important Gin-House Economies. 

than fine and subtile appliances, and therefore the time will never come 
when fine and intelligent attention can not be of importance under this 
separation. Indeed we almost believe that were our common gins to 
day receiving the attention necessary to bring out their best capabili- 
ties, we could even now be given a gin which the gentleman alluded to 
would not call barbarous. Some five j-ears ago we examined a gin with 
a capacity of, we think, six bales a day which was much gentler in its 
handling of the fiber than our saw gin ; but at the same time we per- 
ceived that however wise this machine was in design, it Vas too nice in 
mechanism and movement to allow us to think that, in our ordinarj' gin 
houses, and particularly under the condition in which seed cotton is now 
delivered at these houses, it could be, at least during the decade in 
which we then were, in any general way successful. But we again ex- 
press our faith that the time is fairly a]iproaching when machiner}' in 
our gin houses will be set and cared for and manipulated with the en- 
lightened attention given to machinery in a well ordered cotton factory, 
and then, and in but a limited degree until then, wise mechanicians may 
realize that they can make themselves useful through gin houses in at 
least a measure of the degree in which during the past fift}- years they 
have made themselves useful in cotton machinery other than gins. 

The goodness of a gin made at this time by any of our established 
gin makers depends, we think, less on difference in subtilty of detail 
than on thorough workmanship and material. We have however re- 
cently examined a gin which, in the class now under consideration, 
namely the common saw gin, promises perhaps an advance. It is 
known that under a heavy pressure of work and speed the belt that 
drives the gin brush sometimes slips, and when this happens it is 
easy to conceive that the saws are not duly stripped of the lint; 
and as in this case the lint is again carried into the gin-breast, the con- 
sequence is necessarily a diminished product and a heavier weight 
on the horses or the engine. To bar out these evils, the belt and 
pulleys in the gin in question were removed, and their places supplied 
by gearing. Given that the revolution of the brush is four times that 
of the saws, it follows that a pinion of 4i inches diameter on the saw, 
and a wheel of 18 inches ditto on the brush shaft will preserve these 
proportions; and with this gearing there can be no interruption to 
the due relative revolution of the brush. In the case in question the 
cogs of the wheel were of hard maple, and it may therefore be presumed 
that the usual noise of gearing was reduced to a minimum not particu- 
larly offensive. There is no doubt in our minds under either of two 
points; first if this necessarily short belt be drawn sufficiently taut to 
bar slipping under high weights and speeds, there inevitably follows a 
considerable loss of power*, and if to bar this loss the belt be run a 
little slacker, there must as inevitably ensue a slipping and its equally 
as bad consequences. It is possible that under tliese facts, gearing may 
have been adopted at some earlier daJ^ and perhaps owing to an igno- 
rance which charged a failure from bad workmanship to a supposed 
failure from the design, the plan was abandoned. But if the design is 
good, and we believe it is, we have reason to feel assured that it will 
not be again abandoned. 



*Thls will be more particularly spoken ol in our section " Of The Belt.' 



Important Gin-Souse Economies. 9 

Proving the Condition of the Gin. 

This is a work which should be done faithfully every noontime. You 
may see that it is doina; its work fairly and may naturally think that 
this is all that is necessary; but what seamstress docs not know that 
though her sewing machine makes its stitches this morning as perfect 
as its stitches of j'esterday, it may nevertheless call on her today for 
twice the power it required yesterday? Add to this the fact that ma- 
chines which first handle any substance are more liable to derangement 
than those which handle the substance afterward; the cotton gin is one 
of these first or prime manipulators, and we have in this fact an addi- 
tional reason why it should have a careful daily examination. 

To do this take the belt off the pulley of the horse or steam power 
and hook it back clear of the gin pulley; then, having previously been 
careful to have an empty gin-breast and oiled journal boxes, put the 
face of your open hand on the pulley and if it moves once full round 
under a reasonable pressure of the hand, you may conclude that, at 
least in the absence of a,r\y mal-working which might be developed 
only under full operation, the machine works sufficiently easily. If 
however it does not turn under this fair pressure of the hand, you 
should take off the belt brush and try first the saw and then the brush 
cylinder, and keep on trying until you discover and remove any ob- 
struction which hinders you from turning its entire machinery with 
the face of one of your hands on its driving pulley. 

We were told some time ago by two of the oldest and if not the very 
best at least among the ver}^ best, gin-makers in the country, that if a 
gin be properly constructed and in good condition, it will do its maxi- 
mum of work with its saws an inch and an eighth at their highest 
point through the grate-bars If this be so- — and we have no good 
reason to think otherwise — then very many run their saws too deejjly 
into the roll, and thus uselessly put heavier burdens on their mules. 

You will of course see that the saws run always exactly in the cen- 
ters of the spaces between the grate-bars ; and by proper examinations 
keep yourself sure that your gin is all right in places where the eye 
can not reach it, as well as externally where it is more readily under 
your observation. If the grate-bars wear unduly at the points where 
the saws take the cotton through them to the brush, or if there is any 
obstruction against the easy removal of the lint from the teeth of the 
saws, or to its free passage or delivery into the lint-room, you should 
at once conclude that there is something wrong, and work earnestly 
for its removal. 

Of the Speed of the Gin. 

To ascertain this, you have but to divide the diameter of the pulley 
on the horse power by the diameter of the pulley on the gin stand, 
and then multiply the quotient by the number of turns made by the 
former during one minute's travel of the horses. 

Thus the diameter of the pulley on our No. 4 Faught-Deering is 112 
inches; suppose then that the diameter of your gin jiulley is 8 inches, 
we say 8 into 112 goes 14 times. At the rate of 2 rounds a minute of 
the mules, the pulley on this No. 4 will turn 22 times a minute, and 
we therefore multiply the quotient 14 by 22, which gives us 315, which 
in this case will be the revolution per minute of your gin saws. 

'>> 



10 Important Gin-House Economies. 

If at any time you think that the speed of the saws is too high to 
be fairly borne uj3 under by the number of horses you are using, you 
can make the gin-stand pulley a little larger, or, if you can do so with- 
out interference with full room for the outside horses outside the line of 
the draught hooks, you can put the horses farther from the center, and 
so by the greater time required for their round, decrease the speed of 
the gin, and by the same act give them also the advantage of longer 
levers. 

If at anj^ time, on the other hand, you think your horses can in any 
particular ease fairly give a higher speed to the saws, you can give 
them a trial under this by decreasing the diameter of the puilej' on the 
gin stand, or by moving them with the draught hooks closer to the 
center. 

If under any change of this kind any one is in any way in doubt, 
we invite him to write to our Secretaiy, who will as immediately as 
cheerfully respond with full answers as may be desired. And our ex- 
perience under this part of our subject leads us to request that any 
such letters carefully give accurate information on each of the follow- 
ing points: 

First. Give the distance from the center of the master wheel to the 
draught hooks. 

Second. Give the distance from the draught hooks to the post or 
other obstruction neai-est to the master wheel. 

Third. Give the distance between the center of the pulley on the 
power and the center of the pulley on the gin. 

Fourth. Give the diameter of each of these pulleys, also the number 
of cogs in your pinion and the number of cogs in j'our master wheel. 

Fifth. Give the width and character and running of the belt. We 
mean hy character, whether it is ragged and patched, or smooth and un- 
broken ; and we mean by the running, whether it runs with or without 
an idler, and whether it touches any board or timber at any point of 
its passage between the gin and the power. 

Sixth. Give the number of mules, horses or oxen you are using and 
the number and diameter of the saws of your gin stand. 

Seventh. Give as nearly as you can the times, whether only 2, or 2J, 
or 2J, or 2i, or 2|, or 3 rounds a minute that are usually made by your 
mules, horses or oxen. 

On the receipt of a letter giving plain and full information on each 
of these points we are quite sure that our Secretary can in any case of 
doubt or difficulty guide j'ou into disembarrassment and satisfaction. 

Of the difference between 10 and 12 inch gin saws, we deem it wise 
to quote in this the following from our advertising pamphlet: 

The speed of a 12 inch saw at 2.50 a minute is equivalent to the 
speed of a 10 inch at 300 a minute. If 4 mules, pulling not undulj^, 
can run a gin with fifty 10 inch saws at 300 a minute, they can not, 
with the same pulling, run a gin with fifty 12 inch saws at 300 a min- 
ute ; because in the latter case the number of saw teeth which will pass 
through the cotton will be at least fifteen thousand more a minute than 
passed through it in the first case ; and it must therefore be expected 
that this greater work will call for a greater power. This being recog- 
nized it may be deemed probable that the speeds named in the fore- 
going paragraphs may prove too high for gins with 12 inch saws; but 
should this ever prove so, the matter can be easily adjusted by a little 



Important Gin-House Economies. 11 

lagging lip of the pulleys on the saw shafts, as may on expei'ience be 
found advisable. Much trouble will in many cases be avoided if it be 
borne in mind that gins with 12 inch saws can not be run by any given 
number of mules at the same revolutions per minute at which these 
mules can run the same number of saws of 10 inches in diameter. 

Of the Belt Leading from the Gin to the Po-wer. 

The bolt for a 50 saw gin should be 8 inches wide, and for gins of 60 
or 70 saws should be 9 inches, while for gins of 80 saws it should be 10 
inches wide. 

Some may think that these measures are wider than necessary, and 
we will now therefore explain the wisdom of these widths. 

A few years ago a manufacturer of our acquaintance, after just pass- 
ing through a fire which destroyed his works, put a piece of shafting 
into a lathe to be turned by man power. Some half honr after giving 
the order he passed into the temporary shed in which this was being 
done, and found the machinist turning off about a sixteenth of an inch at 
a cut — the shaft being 2;^ inches in diameter. He said : John, that will 
take too much time. You should take off a deeper cut. Sir, I can't, 
the machinist answered. It is all Jim can do to cut this sixteenth. 

The manufacturer took iiold of the crank and after a few turns dem- 
onstrated for himself that John was right. The driving pulley turned 
by a crank in tlie hands of a laborer was about seven feet distant from 
the jnilley of the laihe, and the belt was therefore necessarily nearly as 
taut as a fiddle string. 

He said : Mr. Machinist, move this frame with its pulley and crank 
shaft five or six feet farther from the lathe, and with a belt that much 
longer, tiy what Jim can do. 

This was done, the belt was run considerably slacker, and Jim then 
turned off an eighth of an inch almost as easily as before he had turned 
the sixteenth. 

John, said the manufacturer, take off this 3 and put on a 4 inch wide 
belt and let us see the result. 

This done, the belt was slackened, as then it could be slackened, still 
a little more, and Jim whistled and John sang on finding that now it 
took less power to turn a cut off' the iron an eighth of an inch in depth 
than it had before taken to cut off the sixteenth. 

Under this demonstration you will perceive the importance of two 
things: first a good wide belt and second a good long belt ; and under 
this latter you will we trust realize tlie great usefulness of the additional 
four or si.x feet which under diagram No. 4 we have advised to be 
added to the gin house on that side of the horse power intended for the 
gin stand. 

We must not close this section however, without earnestly advising 
that you never, if you can possibly avoid it, use a belt binder or idler; 
and be careful that the belt, on its passage from the pulley on the power 
to the pulley on the gin, does not touch, either on edges or faces, any 
thing but God's air. 

If j-our gin house be an old one in which it seems impossible to put 
the gin at a due distance from the power, we suggest that you frame up 
two or three posts four or six feet fi'om the outside of that end of the 
house at which you have your gin stand, and on these frame a floor on 



12 Important Gin-House Economies. 

which you can move the gin outward until its saw cylinder stands over 
the wall beam; then put a roof, dormer fashion, over this projection. 
Two or three days' labor by a resolute workman will enable you to 
move oflf the gin and secure the very great benefits of the longer belt. 

Conclusion. 

We sometimes have letters from correspondents who having old or 
bad, or perhaps old and bad machinery in bud juxtapositions in bad gin 
houses, say they gin an average of but half a bale per mule per day; 
and our answer is that with gin and power set and run, as for the best 
interests of the purchaser, advised in this pamphlet, we can offer a guar- 
antee of 600 pounds per mule per day. 

In conclusion, we respectfully commend to your consideration three 
questions, each to be answered in the light of all the foregoing: 

First. Is it wise to continue any longer than it is possible to discon- 
tinue the use of bad running gear badlj' connected with the gin in a 
bad gin house? 

Second. In the light of the fact that two mules have abundant power 
to gin 600 pounds of cotton in five hours, is it wise to send these mules 
with this cotton, weighing in the seed 1500 pounds, one, two or perhaps 
more miles, to be returned to you minus one tenth or one twelfth for 
ginning, and minus also the more or less inevitable loss in going to and 
passing through a gin house not your own, or in any controlling sense 
not under your supervision? 

Third. In the face of the fact that eight fiiir mules, horses or 
oxen have abundant power, working ten hours a day, to gin 600 bales 
in 90 days (and is not a rest of ten days as good for the animals as an 
idleness of three months) is it wise to subject 3'ourself to the solicitude, 
indeed perhaps the strain and inquietude attending the use of steam 
power ? 

In things of this kind we refrain from trying to exercise any influ- 
ence other than through an unfolding of facts, and beyond the simple 
demonstrations we have given, we therefore leave these questions to be 
answered by your own judgment. 

In justice to ourselves we should add, however, that we purpose, as 
soon as we have secured certain desirable simplicities, to manufacture 
steam engines; and we add to this that, as between steam power, as 
thus far developed, and mule, horse or ox power for gin-houses, we shall 
say then exactly as we say now, naniclj' that, in our generation at least, 
mule, horse or ox power may be made on a very large majority of our 
plantations, all things considered, preferable to steam power. 

As soon as we have secured these wise sini])licities to which we have 
alluded and begin to make steam engines, we shall add to this pamphlet 
a 8uj)plement with our best suggestions for gin houses for steam power. 

Faught-Deering Cotton Gin Driver Manufacturing Company. 

WILLIAM DEERING, Sec'y. 
LOUISVILLE, KY., 1881. 



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